Emcee M.I. and producer DJ Cutt return a year after releasing the critically acclaimed "Avant Garde" with a new album and concept.

The duo who have further developed their creative enterprises to incorporate film production as part of their ever expanding SIX2SIX organization have drawn from their respective Italian and Russian heritages to adopt the personas of Luciano and Lansky in the new album "Omerta" out this July.

Describing the approach, M.I. explains "It's to put a little of the fun back into hip hop, not just throwing out beats and bars. A return to the days where the focus was on entertainment, relating imaginative stories and putting more emphasis on actual songwriting."

The 13 tracks are a series of vignettes set in a metaphorical criminal underworld They depict familiar times, events and cultural reference points as a formula for conveying parallel meaning.

Such imagery has been used by rappers for decades, eager to portray a glorified vision of themselves, but M.I. is a man on a different mission, adding "I'm not endorsing a lifestyle or suggesting this is who I am in any literal sense. I wanted to address this subject in a more intelligent way, compare mindsets and situations in a broader dynamic."